“First time I heard the song, I don’t think you ever know, but I was pretty cautiously optimistic,” he said of the song’s chances of being a hit. “Fortunately, we were right this time. We’ve been wrong sometimes, but we were right this time.”

And while this is his fourth trip to the top of the country airplay charts, the singer and father of two said it’s a feeling that "never gets old."

“I was driving to church one day, the week that this song was No. 1, listening to Bob Kingsley’s countdown on the station back home (Benton, Ark.) and he did this whole thing about it being my fourth No. 1 song,” Moore recalled. “I looked over at my wife and said, ‘Can you believe what we’re listening to right now?’ I called my dad and I said, ‘Dad?’ And he said, ‘I just heard it and I’m bawling and squalling."

Moore released his latest album “Off the Beaten Path” this fall and his new single “Lettin’ the Night Roll” is now on country radio.

ASCAP Songwriter of the Year Ben Hayslip performs at the 2012 ASCAP awards.(Photo: Dipti Vaidya / The Tennessean)

Ever wonder exactly what ASCAP Songwriter of the Year Ben Hayslip was thinking when he penned songs like “Gimmie That Girl” and “Honey Bee?”

Today, 650 AM WSM debuts a show that will offer music fans just that insight, with “The ASCAP Songwriters Show.”

It will air Wednesdays 2-3 p.m. and each week will feature an ASCAP songwriter, who will share stories behind songs they have written, play live in the studio and reveal new songs currently being pitched to today’s artists.

Today’s premiere will spotlight Hayslip and publisher Rusty Gaston (This Music/Warner Chappell). On Monday, at the 50th Annual ASCAP Country Awards, Hayslip won his second consecutive Songwriter of the Year prize, and his “Honey Bee” — written with Rhett Akins and recorded by Blake Shelton — shared a Country Song of the Year award.

“More than possibly any other radio station in America, 650 AM WSM understands that it all begins with a songwriter,” WSM General Manager Tom English said in a release. “After all, the phrase ‘Music City USA’ was coined on our airwaves, and we are thrilled to partner with ASCAP and Regions Bank to provide this one-of-a-kind showcase of incredible Nashville talent on our one-of-a-kind radio station.”

Songwriters on upcoming shows include Dave Turnbull, Odie Blackmon, Jeff Allen, Hannah Dasher, Josh Osborn, Trevor Rosen, James LeBlanc and Lynn Hutton. A calendar of show guests is available at http://www.wsmonline.com.

Click to see a photo gallery from the 50th annual ASCAP Country Music Awards program. Here, Lyle Lovett, center, is honored with the Creative Voice Award. (Photo: Dipti Vaidya/The Tennessean).

Ben Hayslip won his second consecutive Songwriter of the Year prize, and his “Honey Bee” — written with Rhett Akins and recorded by Blake Shelton — shared a Country Song of the Year award with “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” at the 50th Annual ASCAP Country Awards.

“I keep talking about the 29th year of my life, and it’s just been life-changing,” Paslay said before the Monday-night awards ceremony at Gaylord Opryland Resort. “‘Barefoot Blue Jean Night’ started people off recording other songs I’ve written. It’s pretty amazing how that song has catapulted other songs.”

Shelton’s “Honey Bee” also topped the “Billboard” Hot Country chart, and it earned Shelton a Grammy nomination for best country solo vocal performance.

Monday was a big evening as well for Brad Paisley, who notched his third ASCAP Country Songwriter/Artist of the Year win. Sony/ATV/EMI triumphed as ASCAP’s Music Publisher of the Year, and Sirius/XM Radio received a Partners in Music award.

Click here to see a photo gallery from the 2012 ASCAP Country Music Awards red carpet. Shown here, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum. (Photo: Dipti Vaidya / The Tennessean)

ASCAP President Paul Williams, himself a heavily awarded songwriter with credits including “Rainy Days and Mondays” and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” presided over an evening that included numerous performances and career achievement honors for writers Bob McDill and Lyle Lovett.

“I know that it’s an award for old fellas that thought ASCAP had forgotten all about them, and they find out they haven’t forgotten about them,” McDill said. “I’ve been retired for 12 years. This is like old home week. It’s a lot of fun.”

Lyle Lovett was a major label country artist for a time, but his mark has been more master songsmith than hit-maker. Lovett songs including “If I Were The Man You Wanted,” “Closing Time,” “The Waltzing Fool” and “Family Reserve” drew the respect of songwriting elders including Guy Clark, Eric Taylor and Townes Van Zandt, and Lovett’s recordings served (and serve still) as a template for the now-burgeoning Americana movement. Clark, Robert Earl Keen, Sam Bush and Jon Randall performed in his honor as Lovett received the Creative Voice Award.

“I wouldn’t be here tonight if it weren’t for Guy Clark,” Lovett said, noting that Clark pitched Lovett songs to producer/executive Tony Brown even before Clark and Lovett had met. “He’s my songwriting hero, and my personal hero. To have him take part tonight means the world to me.”

Golden Note honoree: Bob McDill. ASCAP's Golden Note Award is presented to songwriters, composers and artists who have achieved extraordinary career milestones. Past recipients include Don Williams, Garth Brooks, Lindsey Buckingham, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire and JD Souther, among others. Throughout a career spanning more than three decades, Texas-born songwriter McDill has written an exceptional 31 number one songs, garnered four Grammy nominations, earned the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year Award in 1994, was named the NSAI Songwriter of the Year three times and was inducted into the NSAI’s Hall of Fame in 1985.

Creative Voice Award: Lyle Lovett. The prestigious ASCAP Creative Voice Award is presented to ASCAP members whose significant career achievements are equally informed by their creative spirit and by their contributions to the role that a music creator can play in the greater community. Lovett joins a select group of ASCAP members who have previously received this award, including Wyclef Jean, Green Day and Metallica.

Click this photo to see a gallery from the 2011 BMI Country Awards red carpet. Here, Keith Urban is recognized during the 59th annual BMI Country Awards on Tuesday night. (Photo: Sam Simpkins/The Tennessean)

Akins and Davidson were named songwriters of the year, each contributing five of the performing rights organization’s most-performed songs of the year on radio and television, four of which they wrote together: “All About Tonight” (Blake Shelton), “All Over Me” (Josh Turner), “Gimmie That Girl” (Joe Nichols) and “The Shape I’m In” (Joe Nichols). “All Over Me” also earned the pair Song of the Year honors.

Akins and Davidson make up two-thirds of songwriting trio the Peach Pickers, and the group’s other member, Ben Hayslip, was named songwriter of the year at the ASCAP Country Awards on Sunday.

“We’re all from South Georgia, and we just talk the same language, and it lands on paper the same,” Davidson said. “To be honored amongst these people is very special to me, and I know it is to Rhett.”

Braddock, a new inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the only living songwriter to have written chart-toppers in five consecutive decades, was named a BMI songwriting Icon for his list of hits, including classics “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and contemporary hits “People Are Crazy” and “I Wanna Talk About Me.”

“It’s unbelievable, it really is,” Hayslip says of landing five hits in one year. “I dreamed of being a lot of things in my life, from an NFL quarterback to a songwriter, but I don’t think I ever dreamed of having five hit songs in a year. Maybe I didn’t think it was possible.”

But Hayslip won’t dwell on his remarkable year for long; he says she’s not “wired” that way.

“It’s like, ‘I’ve got to get on it. I’ve got nothing going on right now, even though I do,'” he says. “I really believe in working hard and trying to forget what you’ve already done and move on to the next thing. In a way, it will drive you crazy because you never enjoy anything, but in another way, tht’s what drives me.”

“Ben is very well-grounded,” explains Josh Turner. “He’s a family man. His ideas and his lyrics and his music come from a real honest place.”

Country star Brad Paisley was honored with his second ASCAP Country Songwriter/Aristist of the Year award at the ceremony at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center on Sunday night. Paisley scored three of ASCAP’s most-performed songs of the year: “Anything Like Me,” “This is Country Music” and “Water.” He won the award in 2004 and over his career has had 24 additional ASCAP Most Performed Songs of the Year Awards.

Rodney Atkins pulled his big Chevrolet truck into a parking place at one of his favorite Nashville lunch spots, Ted’s Big Montana Grill, but he wasn’t alone.

A budding songwriter had tailed the country singer from Music Row, hoping to pitch him a song in the parking lot. As Atkins strolled past the patio, several other people yelled out his name, and another songwriter stopped him at the restaurant’s front door to talk about a potential cut. Atkins had been seated for less than five minutes when a struggling artist came over to ask for career tips.

“They feel like they know me,” a soft-spoken Atkins said after his last visitor left. “What’s weird is when people get their camera phones out and are trying to sneak and take your picture when you walk into places.”

Atkins’ career has been recovering from a short slump on the country airplay charts — his last two singles, “Chasin' Girls” and “15 Minutes,” failed to break the Top 20, though current single “Farmer’s Daughter” has reached the Top 5. Still, fans certainly don’t seem to have noticed that anything was amiss.

Atkins did — particularly as he saw the number of shows and the size of the venues he was playing shrink.

“We went from playing coliseums and LP Field to state fairs,” Atkins said. “I guess that’s the wake up call — the ‘What?’ The ‘OK, what just happened here that I was obviously oblivious to?’”Continue reading →